In a room high above the busy streets of Manhattan, a young man removed the glass from the window of his apartment. He placed it on his bed, looked out at the magnificent skyline, and contemplated his life. He was Donny Hathaway.
Born on October 1, 1945, Donny sang in the church at the side of his grandmother from the age of three, and soon after became a child prodigy on the piano. After winning a full-ride scholarship in fine arts to Howard University, Hathaway dropped out in 1967 to pursue a career in music. Donny built his new career as a stellar studio musician and producer at Curtis Mayfield’s Curtom Records. But it was at Atlantic Records that he released his first recording.
From September 11, 1969 through April 16, 1970, Donny Hathaway recorded Everything is Everything. "The Ghetto," the first song released from that album, was just under 7 minutes long - an epic length back in the day when even a 4-minute single rarely got airplay. So in order to release it as a single, they broke it up into a double-sided Part 1 & Part 2.
At best, the song can be described as only a modest hit, peaking at #87 on Billboard’s Hot 100, and #23 on the Billboard Hot Soul Singles chart. But the significance of the recording can be better appreciated by examining the music by other artists that followed. Nowadays, the word "genius" is handed out like fliers on a street corner. Donny Hathaway was the real deal - a true musical genius that was ahead of his time. He was a pathfinder of style and substance. While others sought out the golden Pop aisles of the record stores, Hathaway seemed to embrace black music. Donny’s style was the 1970’s personified, with his big Apple Jack hats and mutton chop sideburns. He sported maxi-length leather topcoats a year before "Shaft" made them a fashion statement.
"The Ghetto" defined an era of black music that was yet to come. It was the summer of 1970, a year before Jesse Jackson’s "I AM Somebody," and the first dashikis were worn on Soul Train. It was a year before Marvin Gaye’s "Inner City Blues (Makes Me Wanna Holler"). It was almost 3 years before WAR told us "The World is a Ghetto." There was no "Good Times" on TV to show us how much fun we were having in the ghetto. There were no "Jeffersons" through which to chart our rise from obscurity. All across the country, in the urban pockets of poverty and despair, "The Ghetto" gave us a new identity. One that was proud and unyielding; protective and protected, of and by those who walked the city streets. The song pushed colored folks into Negro-ness, and Negroes into unapologetic Black. It was not yet Nation Time. It was neighborhood time, and "The Ghetto" brought a sense of pride in our neighborhoods.
My brand new Camaro was adorned by a red-black-and-green Liberation Flag decal that drove my dad crazy. "The Ghetto" drove a minor wedge between black generations. Barbershops took a major hit as Afros expanded to the skies. Black pride. One year earlier, James Brown proclaimed in Say It Loud I’m Black & I’m Proud that "We would rather die on our feet than live on our knees." Donny’s song told us that we could live on our feet. Ghetto was not the word we used or accepted to define our community. And there was some ambivalence as to the intention of the song. But there was never any doubt once the song hit the airwaves.
From the very beginning of the song, Donny proclaimed, "Yes, this is The Ghetto! Sho-nuff now." And, as much as it was an affirmation, it was an indictment of the circumstances in which we often placed ourselves. In a deep bass voice that would have made the Temptations’ Melvin Franklin proud, Donny sang along with the bass player, Marshall Hawkins: "You know you ain’t doin’ what you s’posed to, but you know you wrong... got to be wrong. The Ghetto, The Ghetto." Donny spoke to protecting our women in the neighborhood, ("Leave her alone, Man!"). He addressed black-on-black crime ("Hey man, gimme yo’ money. You better not tell nobody.") Drugs in the community ("Pass the joint!"). The term, "Everything is everything" preceded "It is what it is" by almost 40 years.
"The Ghetto" was a mainstay on everyone’s turntable. And the music seemed to spill out through the windows of the projects and brownstones onto the streets of the inner city. Block parties and picnics played the song seemingly on an endless loop. "The Ghetto!" Donny’s voice, layered over several tracks, set the cadence that would be the backbeat over the entire recording. The Ghetto. Emphatically! The Timbale man played call-and-response with the congas. Donny scatted his electric piano all over the place. "The Ghetto. Talkin’ ‘bout The Ghetto. The Ghetto." It was infectious. He sprinkled a little church into the mix. "My Lord, The Ghetto." and the gospel-inspired double cadence clapping of hands. There’s Donny scatting along with the bass player, predating George Benson’s guitar scat-along on "This Masquerade." A baby screamed with joy. "The Ghetto... Talkin’ ‘bout The Ghetto."
Deft percussion under the capable hands of "Master" Henry Gibson on congas, Morris Jennings and Ric Powell on drums, timbales and tambourines - moved the session to a fever pitch. "The Ghetto" was written and performed as a celebration. Donny seemed to leave the political debate to others. From Bed-Stuy in Brooklyn, to Watts, Hathaway found his audience. Ghetto dwellers were a proud people. People sitting on the scrubbed marble stoops of Baltimore, or dangling their feet from the painted fire escapes in Harlem. Donny’s recording was much more than a hit song. It became a new inner city national anthem.
They say that Donny was ahead of his time, but Time never had a chance to catch up. At the pinnacle of his career, Hathaway began to suffer from severe bouts of depression and was soon diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, a world ruled by demons and delusions. He was known to have taken up to 14 pills, two or three times a day to control this disease. This condition wreaked havoc on his life, particularly his personal and professional relationships. Between the notes, his life was an enigmatic study of contrast - deeply spiritual, yet troubled and tormented.
On January 13, 1979, not quite ten years after recording "The Ghetto," Donny Hathaway opened his window, took a look at the skyline one last time and fell 15 stories to his death on a New York sidewalk. Investigators said it was a suicide. The rest of us understood that his demons had won. So we chose to just play his music and celebrate his life.